The PlutoX Aerial Robotics Kit is a DIY quadcopter that you can program and add your own hardware to. This unique device is perfect for experimenters, hobbyists and basically anyone who is interested in developing a project that can fly.

In this article I’ll introduce you to the PlutoX and to the Cygnus IDE, the development environment you’ll use to write code for the drone.

I’m sure you have seen those inexpensive robot car chassis kits, the ones that come with two 6-volt motors. They are great fun and very useful and they even come with a couple of speed encoder disks (those little black circles full of holes). Problem is, no one tells you how to use them!

Let’s resolve that and build a robot car with speed sensors. Along the way we’ll learn how to use Interrupts, a valuable programming technique.

The MeArm is a small robot arm that was originally designed as a teaching device for schoolchildren. Despite its toy-like appearance it is also an excellent tool for serious robotics experimenters who would like to develop software and control systems for robotic arms without a large hardware expenditure.